A big part of soccer fitness training is that it should be interesting for your players. There is nothing worse than a soccer coach telling his players to go ahead and run a few laps, when it comes to the soccer conditioning part of a practice session.
You will find half your players moving at different paces and you can be pretty sure they will get bored in no time. In fact, many of them won’t even complete the number of laps; you ask them to do, not because they can’t, but because they just don’t feel like. Neither would you – because there does not seem any purpose behind it.
Your players must look forward to their practice sessions, so give them a good reason to. The best ones are those that build their skills along with their soccer fitness levels. Here is one that you can use. It will take roughly ten to fifteen minutes and will enhance your player’s ball handling skills.
- Fitness Exercise
Here is what you do. Let your players make pairs. Each pair should take a ball. While one player exercises, the other player rests. The player, who exercises, begins with the ball positioned between the legs and passes the ball between the right and the left foot, with as much speed as he is capable of.
The job of the player who is resting is to keep track of the number of times; the ball touches the active player’s right foot. You will notice that this way both players participate in the exercise and inspire the active player to keep at it, with the awareness that he is being observed.
This also avoids the player at rest from getting distracted. When the active player has passed the ball for a minute, he rests and the resting player takes over.
You can vary this by asking the players to practice touches on the ball with the feet, touching it first with the right and then the left. The idea is to touch it as many times as the player can, for sixty seconds, with the other player keeping track of it. Alternate the touches and passing, increasing the time as you go.
Keep your players informed of what you expect, so that they can take over from each other without actually breaking the flow. This soccer fitness training exercise keeps your players on their toes and working hard.